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August 2008
Dell unveils low-cost PCs for emerging markets
BEIJING — Dell unveiled new computers designed for businesses in developing nations today, a step executives and analysts called important to the company’s drive to boost sales outside of the United States.
The company introduced four new computers. Two notebooks will be available in more than 20 countries, starting at about $475. The cheaper of the two desktop computers — part of the company’s Vostro line — will start at about $440, including a screen.
The new models are aimed at helping Dell deepen its hold on developing markets as sales have slowed in mature markets including the United States.
“Within the world’s emerging economies, millions of new businesses are demanding just the technology they need, at the prices the can afford, from a vendor they can trust,” said Stephen Felice, Dell’s president for operations in the Asia Pacific region.
“We have high hopes for broad adoption in the 20 countries,” which include Brazil, Russia, India and China, he said in Beijing.
Dell is one of many companies offering low-price, no-frills computers in China and other developing countries.
Last year, Asustek, a Taiwanese computer-maker, released the Asus Eee PC, a line of small laptops that retail for between $300 and $500. Acer released a small notebook in July that retails in Taiwan for about $350 while Hewlett-Packard unveiled a similar product in April.
Dell’s new models are “a good move because it’s not only in emerging markets where there are high growth rates but also among small and medium businesses,” said Bryan Ma, an IDC analyst based in Singapore.
Marketing to businesses with dozens or hundreds of people is also notable because Dell has traditionally focused on winning contracts from corporations and institutions with thousands of employees, Ma said.
“Given Dell’s history, this represents a tactical move to build out its channels and reach out to more customers,” he said. “It’s the new Dell.”
The cheaper of the two new Dell notebooks — the Vostro A840 — has a 14.1-inch screen and offers the choice of several Intel processors and either the free Linux operating system or, for an additional charge, Microsoft Windows.
Equipped with a modem and a wireless card, it and a more expensive version with a larger screen are targeted at small business owners, schools and government institutions, traditionally one of Dell’s nstrongest customers.
The cheaper desktop model uses an Intel Atom processor and the Ubuntu Linux operating system. To keep costs down, it is sold with free, open source software including a “full business office application suite,” according to a company press release.
“The key thing that we did is we focused on the functionality that was required and then we didn’t add features that weren’t going to be used,” Felice said.
As millions of entrepreneurs start businesses in China and other developing countries, demand for affordable computers will spike.
Sales of computers to small and medium-sized businesses in China, currently Dell’s second-largest market after the United States, are expected to grow by more 22 percent annually for the next five years, according to research firm IDC.
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Top-secret surfing with IE 8
Microsoft’s forthcoming Internet Explorer 8 browser will come with new privacy features that will let you go Web surfing in secret.
In a Microsoft blog posting Andy Zeigler, Microsoft program manager for Internet Explorer 8, didn’t specifically mention porn, just in case you’re wondering.
But he did give a couple of examples where the IE8 features would come in handy, such as when you use someone else’s computer and don’t want them to know what sites you’ve visited (like buying a gift for your wife or hubbie) or when you use a public Internet kiosk for banking and don’t want to leave traces of your bank account info behind.
The new “InPrivate” settings in the next version of the world’s most popular Internet browser automatically prohibit cookies and other other information from being stored, covering your online tracks.
“Users should be in control of their information,” Zeigler wrote. “That’s at the core of privacy.
Microsoft is planning to release IE8 later this year, though it hasn’t said exactly when.
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Dell announces new computers
Dell engineers showed off a redesigned line of Latitude and Precision laptops today.
Some of the highlights of the business computers, the company says, include a 2.2-pound model, a stretched battery life of up to 19 hours and lots of color options, including Mica-Brushed Metal, Regatta Blue, Regal Red, Quartz Pink Matte Black.
Something else new: Dell previewed something it calls “Dell Latitude ON.” The company says it allows users “near-instant” access to e-mail, calendar, attachments, contacts and the Internet - all without booting up the main operating system. Latitude ON, which will be available on Latitude E4200 and E4300, makes use of a low-voltage sub-processor. It should be available in the coming months, Dell says.
If you want to read more about the new computers, then click here to visit the company’s site.
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Intel goes hard Core
Intel is turning to the core of its latest marketing strategy for the name of its newest computer chips.
The world’s biggest chip maker on Sunday announced it plans to brand its newest desktop computer processors (think of the Pentium brand of the past) with the simple name “Core.”
The first chips in the line (previously code-named “Nehalem”) will come with the name Core i7 - though what the “i7” is supposed to mean isn’t exactly clear.
“The Core name is and will be our flagship PC processor brand going forward,” Sean Maloney, Intel’s executive vice president and general manager said in a statement. “Expect Intel to focus even more marketing resources around that name and the Core i7 products starting now.”
The “core” slogan is familiar to anybody who follows the chip business. Intel has pushed its “Core 2 Duo” processor hard in recent months, and arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. similarly has build its business around its Athlon X2 dual core processors.
In processor parlance, “cores” refer to separate processing units that are linked together on a single chip.
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Angelina Jolie naked
See that one come through your email in box lately?
Probably so.
A new report from Internet security company Secure Computing shows that emails mentioning actress Jolie and other celebrities (also often naked) are the most common forms of e-mail spam tied to hacker attacks these days.
Angelina Jolie spam emails (other variations include “Angelina Jolie nude movie” and “Angelina Jolie naked video”) accounted for more than 2 percent of all email sent over the Internet last month, according to Secure Computing.
Recipients ignorant enough to actually open and click on the fake video link inside the emails are taken to a Web site that automatically downloads a malicious software “Trojan” that can scan their computer, disable security features, modify files and collect sensitive personal information.
And who knew Angelina Jolie was so bad?
Of course she’s not the only celebrity used by hackers in naughty email spam. According to Secure Computing, following Angelina in the top celebrity spam count were emails mentioning Barack Obama, followed by the more usual suspects Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson.
Hillary Clinton was next, followed by George Bush, Osama Bin Laden and Angelina Jolie’s hubbie, Brad Pitt.
Michael Jackson rounded out the Top 10 list of celebrity email spam, proving that when it comes to spam, you just can’t Beat It.
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A cleaner, greener Dell
Dell Inc. used to get beat up pretty regularly by environmentalists before founder and CEO Michael Dell found a greener side a few years ago.
Wednesday, the Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker got some green praise from the tree-hugging crowd after it announced it had met its biggest and latest environmental goal - well ahead of schedule.
By switching to “green” energy produced from renewable resources, cutting back on electricity consumption and buying carbon “offsets” such as portions of a forest in Madagascar, Dell said it is now carbon neutral, meeting its earlier pledge to do so by the end of 2008.
Like Dell, lots of big companies have voluntarily slashed their carbon emissions to do their part to fight global warming. Many are now carbon neutral. But Dell is the biggest technology company to go carbon-neutral, and it can now thumb its nose at competitors such as Apple Inc. that may have a better environmental image but really can’t back it like Dell can.
Dell earlier this year announced its corporate headquarters near Austin is 100 percent powered by “green” renewable energy, although some local environmentalists dispute that its using the cleanest energy sources it can. Since 2004, Dell’s overall investment in “green” electricity has grown from 12 million kWh to 116 million kWh, according to the company.
In keeping with its growth in green, Dell also announced Wednesday it is making additional investments in wind power in the United States, China and India. It also is partnering with Conservation International to protect more than 591,000 acres of habitat in the Republic of Madagascar. Doing so will help prevent more than 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere over the next five years, according to the group.
Environmentalists generally praise Dell for its recent track record, but that doesn’t mean the company can’t do better, some say. Earlier this week, Greenpeace took issue with the company in a report that said it found Dell computers - along with TVs and other electronics from companies including Microsoft, Sony, Philips, Nokia, Canon and Siemens - in landfills in Ghana, in Africa.
Greenpeace said the goods, which contain hazardous toxic chemicals such as mercury, lead and brominated flame retardants, apparently were shipped there and subsequently dumped by “recyclers” who claimed they were “second-hand goods.”
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Olympics: Anywhere, anytime
Beginning with the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, organizers have tried to use the Internet to reach virtually every corner of the world.
This year, they might just succeed.
NBC Universal will broadcast an unprecedented 3,600 hours of coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. Can’t get to a TV? On its Web site, NBC will have video on demand. Can’t get to your computer? NBC, as well as wireless providers such as AT&T and Verizon will also beam mobile video and alerts to your cell phone.
That’s just the start of the Olympics long reach across the World Wide Web. On Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee will launch a special YouTube channel available exclusively in 77 countries and territories where NBC or others don’t have broadcast rights - places ranging from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. (Sorry, YouTube fans; the channel won’t be available in the United States).
Another service, sponsored by PC maker Lenovo and an Internet company called TV Tonic, lets you download full length videos of events overnight and watch them on your laptop later.
This year’s Olympian Web efforts are of course a giant leap from those early Internet incursions into the Atlanta games.
Back then, Web coverage was pretty much limited to some static pages hosted by IBM Corp. that often were often glitchy and slow to load. Widespread, easy-to-use video on the Web was little more than a pipe dream, and cell phones were used for, well, making phone calls.
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Sky’s limit at EarthLink
After some recent business setbacks and failures, Sky Dayton, the 1990s technology wunderkind who founded Atlanta-based EarthLink Inc., is leaving the company’s board of directors, EarthLink just announced.
Dayton, a California millionaire, hasn’t really been too involved with the day-to-day business of EarthLink for some time, of course.
But it was Dayton who who created Helio, the cell phone company forged in a deal between EarthLink and Korea’s SK Telecom that fizzled in June. Helio announced in June it was selling out to Virgin Mobile for a fraction of what the two companies had invested in the venture.
Dayton also was a big supporter of EarthLink’s push into municipal wireless Internet access, another venture that flopped.
None of that takes away from the roaring success Dayton had in 1994 when he started EarthLink back when he was 23 years old and dial-up Internet access was still booming. EarthLink merged with Atlanta-based Internet service provider MindSpring in 1999.
In a statement, Dayton indicated he might try another startup.
“After 14 years, I believe it is the right time for me to return full time to my entrepreneurial roots,” he said.
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How do you say “search” in Maori?
All you Maori warriors no longer have to worry about being left behind in the Internet age.
Google Inc. proudly announced on its corporate blog today that it has launched its latest localized home page and search interface in the official (albeit not exactly widely spoken) language of New Zealand.
The page is part of Google’s initiative to make its search engine — and its advertisements, of course — accessible to people who speak the world’s 40 most common languages.
At least when I checked, the new Google in Maori really doesn’t look a lot different than Google in English. But it may be helpful when folks down under in New Zealand want to view sites that contain Maori language.
And, hey, it’s always fun to see a picture of a Maori warrior like the guy on the right.
